Education: Character Education to be Entered into National Education

Suara Pembaruan, page 16

Minister of Education and Culture Muhadjir Effendy said, Strengthening Character Education (KDP) will be applied in the national education system. To achieve this, he encouraged the Education Quality Assurance Agency (LPMP) to include the KDP program in the Curriculum 2013 (K13) training. According to Muhadjir, the implementation of Curriculum 2013 in its implementation can be synchronized to government policy, especially in the application of KDP.

Muhadjir added that the K13 training could adapt to the KDP program. He mentioned the program has been running since 2016. Noted, the KDP program has been implemented in 1,500 schools and this year it is targeted to involve 15,000 schools.

In addition to the curriculum, Muhadjir said, in improving the special human resources for vocational high schools (SMK), Kemdikbud also collaborates with the business world and industry to revitalize the vocational education program applied through Kemdikbud cooperation with the Ministry of Industry. The cooperation includes, strengthening the role of teachers through multiple skills programs, and empowering employees from the experienced business world and industry. This is done because the government has a target to meet the shortage of productive teachers.

According to Muhadjir, the government has a target that until 2019, Indonesia will have 91 thousand SMK teachers.  In addition to multiple skills programs and empowerment of employees of the business world and industry, the government also provides vocational education and training for SMK teachers by dispatching them to highly industrialized countries.